Serena Williams is a phenomenal woman. The ultimate sportsman, world-class tennis player, and the woman who changed the game of tennis. She is indeed the GOAT of tennis and is also the GOAT of life, especially for Black women. Serena rose above the occasion EVERY time.
Williams’s path started as a child before school with her parent’s tutelage. She fondly remembers beginning to play tennis at the age of three years old.
Richard Williams had five daughters, and he paved the road to daughters Venus And Serena’s success. He is a miracle story of how he took his daughters to a discipline he did not know from experience but was determined to help them excel. Mr. Williams often swept the debris from the tennis courts in Compton, California, for them to play. He taught his girls discipline. And although his teaching methods were considered madness, he was a very conscientious parent.
Serena’s big sister, Venus, was her role model. She followed her. Even when a White coach decided that he would teach only one Williams sister, he chose the older Venus. But Daddy Williams, not to be deterred, said, I will tape the lessons, and Serena will learn from the tapes.
Serena was secondary, which only made her work harder. She had to keep up with her big sister. If you have not seen the movie, you must see King Richard, where the upbringing of the Williams girls is told in detail. Actor Will Smith portrays the father Richard Williams so well that he won an Academy Award.
Who is Serena?
Serena is one of the most successful athletes of all time. And arguably the best tennis player in history. Her professional career started when she was 14 years old. As she exits the professional game, her records include 858 tour victories, 73 singles titles and Olympic gold medals, and 319 weeks at No. 1. She enjoys the ranks of Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson. To me, she is even greater because she played two months pregnant when she won the Australian Open in 2017.
Serena is a real champion, and I admire how she ended her court career. She expounds she is not retiring but is evolving or what Michelle Obama might call becoming. The premier fashion magazine Vogue covered her exit story. She tells Vogue, “There were so many matches I won because something made me angry or someone counted me out. That drove me. I’ve built a career on channeling anger and negativity and turning it into something good. My sister Venus once said that when someone out there says you can’t do something, it is because they can’t do it”. But I did do it, and so can you.” This is the Serena that we should know and remember. Notice she gives her exit story NOT to a sports magazine but to a fashion magazine. A brilliant PR move.
Her story will detail how she changed the game while being a trendsetter with fashionable tennis outfits (from the traditional white only), including catsuits, denim skirts, and one-legged spats, to paving the way for many through her resilience in mastering and excelling in a predominately white country club sport. However, her real contribution to women everywhere is women athletes can be themselves. “Women can play with aggression and pump their fists. They can wear what they want, say what they want, kick butt, and be proud of it all.”
As she exits or evolves into her next phase of life and gives up her game, she is a woman who wants to get pregnant again. Her biological clock is ticking, and she would not have to choose between family and career if she was a man. But now, she chooses her family life. Her five-year-old daughter, Olympia, is asking for a little sister. How precious.
Next Serve…
Serena will be a champion whatever she chooses in her next career chapter. After a 30-year-professional career, she has the assets to win the game, no matter the game. Tennis has made her a very wealthy woman. Her career prize money is $94 million, twice as much as any other female athlete has made, and her net worth is nearly $300 million. Serena has put her money to good use and has become a skilled investor. In 2014, she founded her venture capital firm Serena Ventures LLC. According to the New York Times, the firm has raised around $111 million and will use this money to invest in founders with diverse points of view and underrepresented backgrounds.
She was one of the first investors in Master Class, a “unicorn,” a private company with a valuation of $1 billion or more without the stock market listing it. They are called unicorns because it is rare for a startup to reach this level of success. Some other unicorns SA has funded include Impossible Foods, Daily Harvest, Tonall, and Noom.
When Williams attended an event led by Caryn Seidman-Becker, CEO of security company CLEAR, she learned that investments for VC money went to 98% male companies. So she decided to do something about it. Again she brought change.
I can’t wait to see what Serena does next. But she is a real woman who made a difference and will continue to do with her endeavors. We watch and wait for more swirls and twirls from the great one.
